Continuing my reflections on what I shall miss and not miss when I return to France at the end of this week ..
Call it a lapse in taste or just a boyhood crush but I once worshipped the country singer Skeeter Davis. I even liked Jim Reeves though only after he was killed in a plane crash.
But these fascinations were brief. My first musical passions were the Everly Brothers, the Elvis of that era, the Shadows and one or two others. The Beatles and Stones changed many lives, mine included, but I soon moved on to harder rock and folk. Folk, apart from the US protest variety, I reached via the blues as played by British and American bands with an emphasis on haunting guitar solos and brooding harmonicas.
Today, I still listen to lots of folk and try unsuccessfully to avoid modern pop while also being realistic about how much tosh was recorded in the acclaimed 1960s and 1970s. I enjoy jazz and some classical music.
But the other constant since the 1960s has been the blues, Chicago or Mississippi sourced or inspired. As I have written recently at Salut! Live, it took me no time at all to locate where it, and the more traditional forms that please me, could be heard when I lived in Paris. A good London blues club took me a good deal longer and, just as I have found it, I'm returning to France.
So among the things I'll miss over the coming months will be the Ain't Nothing But ... blues bar just behind Hamleys in London West End. I caught three excellent bands there one recent Saturday and will be back for more. Jeremiah Marques, see above, was outstanding.
Read more about it here: http://www.salutlive.com/2014/03/the-blues-of-jeremiah-marques-aint-nothing-but-sensational.html
Here's an extract:
Jeremiah Marques, though, was extraordinary. Wonderful stage presence, robust vocals, exemplary accompaniment with the harmonica player, Laurie Garman, quite outstanding. Marques veered from Chicago blues to a rootsy approach to reggae towards the end of his first set. But it worked just as well, maybe not surprising since he could probably pass himself off as Bob Marley's brother.
* And something else I shall not miss. British television.
I have come to detest the man-and-young-woman news presenter format, the tabloid approach to bulletins which diminishes the often excellent reporting from afar - and what passes for entertainment. I still watch Coronation Street, which is well acted but sags beneath quite appalling scripts and storylines, but there is little else to make me long for home.
Indeed, I leave the UK in the knowledge I shall miss only Mr Selfridge, documentaries (this year's war anniversaries mean some are very special), one or two of the million editions and repeats of Come Dine With Me we are bombarded with, Channel 4 news, televised football and, on a good night, Graham Norton.
Radio is better. TalkSPORT has faults but is invariably a good listen for football-obsessed folk, Radio 4 still does the news better than most and Norton, again, for his Saturday morning Radio 2 show, which must be good to rise above the wretched choice of music played. Better still is the Radio 2 programme that precedes Norton, Brian Matthew's Sounds of the Sixties, which also has plenty of dodgy records but is a goldmine of intriguing anecdotes about who made them, why and how they did - if at all - in the charts.
Matthew is 85. "He's far too old and should make way for someone younger," Mme Salut insists. "He sounds ancient." Maybe that's why I like him, as I did Brian Johnston and still do Jimmy Armfield.
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